Transparent conductors have been used mainly as transparent electrodes in touch panels in the display field, for example. Widely used typical transparent conductors are transparent films such as indium tin oxide (ITO) films. The ITO films, however, have the following problems (1) to (4), for example.    (1) Uneven thickness of an ITO film causes interference of light components reflected on the front and back surfaces of the ITO film, producing tinged reflected light.    (2) An ITO film has a high reflectance because of its refractive index of about 1.9 to 2.0 which is greatly different from the refractive index of the air layer.    (3) In the case of using multiple ITO films in a product such as a touch panel, the films decrease the transmittance (transparency) of the product.    (4) Indium, the major ingredient, of an ITO film, is a minor metal and may be depleted.
In order to deal with these problems, Patent Literatures 1 to 16, for example, suggest replacement of ITO films with transparent conductors such as ones obtained by placing metal fine particles in a pattern or ones obtained by patterning a metal thin film. These configurations are described to have transparency (light transparency) attributed to the opening regions in the transparent conductors as well as the conductivity attributed to the transparent conductors.
Also, configurations have been suggested in which a transparent film such as an ITO film is formed on an anti-reflection film having a moth-eye structure, a kind of a nanometer-sized projection recess structure (nanostructure), (for example, see Patent Literature 17). These configurations are described to have a low-reflection property attributed to the moth-eye structure as well as the conductivity attributed to the ITO film. In addition, for purposes other than forming transparent conductors, configurations with anti-fouling properties (for example, see Patent Literature 18) and configurations having water repellency (for example, see Patent Literature 19), as well as the low-reflection property attributed to the moth-eye structure, have been suggested.